Print Book Distribution and Book Printing Services

As great as ebooks are, as an author, there is nothing like seeing the result of perhaps years of work materialize in a physical book. Holding your book in your hands is one of the greatest feelings of accomplishment any author can experience. This is just one reason "print on demand" books are as popular as they are. Besides the subjective feeling of accomplishment, printed books still account for about half of book sales, and serve many purposes that ebooks cannot such as giveaways, promotional copies, and back-of-room sales at events.

What is Print On Demand?

Just what the name implies. Your book, in paperback or hardcover (case laminate or cloth with jacket) format, black and white or in color, printed as needed. What is great about print on demand, is that you, as the author, can do short-run book printing and have 1 or more copies printed and shipped to your home, to sell or give away as needed. This is unlike going through book printers who require hundreds of books minimum. The major online retailers—Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble will sell the printed version of your book, and the major distributor, Lightning Source, will make your book available to virtually every bookstore in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, both online and brick and mortar. Or, you can simply get books printed for your own distribution.

The best part—besides the low production costs, is that there are no storage fees, nor any need to invest huge sums of money into large quantities of books. Book printing via print on-demand is a very inexpensive option thanks to technology in printing books.

Amazon KDP and Lightning Source

After almost a decade of being in the business, we discovered that to maximize both availability and sales, it is important to print books with both Amazon KDP as well as Lightning Source (LS)—both have their pros and cons but together they will help you dominate the market. LS allows for many unique sizes as well as hard cover, whereas Amazon will never show your print book as being "out of stock" if we use their print book service. Also, depending on your books specs, one of the two options can be significantly less expensive for book printing (which we refer to as "author copies").

By using both KDP and LS, we can take advantage of Amazon's direct-to-consumer marketing and receive a larger royalty while maintaining a reasonable retail price. Then with LS's bookstore-to-consumer marketing we use the industry standard 55% discount so that bookstores make a decent profit when reselling your book. The result is that you, the author/publisher, make the most money while your book has maximum distribution!

Pricing

How much it will cost to get your book in print depends on what services you need. Most customers have us professionally layout the interior and design the cover, but if you have the capability to do it yourself and provide print-ready files, then you can save a little money. First we'll start with the setup costs. Simply check the options you will need to see the total price.

Quantity Discount: If you plan on submitting 10 (ten) or more ebooks, you can order and pay for them in advance, in one payment, and receive 20% off the base conversion/distribution fee. You will have up to one year to submit the books. If you are interested in this, let us know.

Paperback Distribution Service:

Check this box if you want a paperback version of your book distributed through Amazon KDP and Lightning Source's global network

Distribute a paperback version of my book.

Paperback Layout Service:

We convert your .doc, .docx, .pages, .odt, .rtf, or .pdf file into an Amazon KDP ready file while making it look great. Otherwise, you can do this yourself by using one of Amazon's templates.

Create a professional cover for my paperback and fit it into the template.

Hardcover Distribution Service:

Check this box if you want a hardcover version of your book distributed through Lightning Source's global network.

Also distribute a hardcover version of my book.

Hardcover Layout Service:

We will modify your paperback interior (if we created it) to include a different ISBN and create the new print-ready interior file. This service requires paperback layout service.

Create the hardcover interior file for me.

Hardcover Cover Design/Layout:

Hardcover covers include the front, spine, back sides, and (sometimes) inside flaps which are fitted specifically for Lightning Source's templates. This service includes the right-to-use license on the stock photography and images used to create the cover. For full details on this service, see our Book Cover Design / Ebook Cover Design Service page. This service requires paperback cover design/layout service.

Now that the setup is out of the way, you should have two other questions: 1) How much will I make on each books sold and 2) How much would it cost me to buy copies of my own book for my own distribution? To answer these questions, we have three interactive tools. One for Amazon KDP paperback books, one for paperback books through Lightning Source, and one for hardcover books through Lightning Source. Select all the options and enter your retail price in order to see your cost and royalty per book sold.

KDP Paperback Book / Amazon Distribution

This section is for paperback books created and distributed by Amazon KDP only.

Trim Size:

Amazon's choices for trim sizes are limited.

Ink and Paper:

Choose a b&w or color in, along with the paper color,

Cover Texture:

Choose texture.

Number of Pages:

This is the number of pages in the finished PDF. Minimum 24 pages, maximum 828 pages.

Retail Price:

This is the retail price of the book in USD. Prices for other markets will be set automatically.

$

Author Copy Prices and Royalty

By changing the variables in the above section you can update these prices.

We work with authors and publishers to format and convert books into ebooks, and distribute them to all the major ebook retailers including Amazon, Apple, B&N, Google Play, Ingram, Kobo, Scribd, Baker and Taylor, and our own bookstore. We then work with our clients to promote their books to the media and the public.

As great as ebooks are, as an author, there is nothing like seeing the result of perhaps years of work materialize in a physical book. Holding your book in your hands is one of the greatest feelings of accomplishment any author can experience. This is just one reason print on demand books are as popular as they are.

Imagine your book enjoyed by listeners all over the world, distributed by Audible, the world's leading retailer of digital audio books, through outlets such as Audible.com, Amazon, and iTunes. With the help of eBookIt.com, we can make this possible.

People really do judge a book by its cover. Right or wrong, many readers associate the quality of the writing and the content with the quality of the cover. Don't risk readers passing on your book because of an unattractive cover.

Imagine having your very own industry expert right there for you for all of your publishing needs. Ryan Levesque, eBookIt.com co-founder has worked with thousands of our clients since 2010 and is now focusing exclusively on providing a more personal level of service to those clients who want services beyond our standard offerings through the Publishing Concierge Service.

As founder of eBookIt.com, I have a privileged perspective of what works when it comes to book marketing and promotion, having worked with thousands of authors over the years. In this FREE course, I share this information with you.